The chief of the Towers clan turned insolently on his heel and walked away and the crowd fell back to let him pass. CHAPTER XX When the Jews heard of a Messiah coming as a king they made ready to acclaim him, but when they found him a moralist commanding the sacrifice of their favorite sins, they surrendered him to Pilate and cried out to have Barrabas freed to them. That afternoon Turner Stacy, the apostate leader, saw his kinsmen breaking into troubled groups of seething debate. The yeast of surprise and palpable disappointment was fermenting in their thoughts. They had come prepared to follow blindly the command of a warrior--and had encountered what seemed to them a noisy parson. Those who saw in the young man a bigger and broader leadership than they had expected were those who just now said little. So some regarded him with silent and pitying reproach while others scowled openly and spat in disgust--but all dropped away and the crowd melted from formidable numbers to lingering and unenthusiastic squads. They had not even attached serious importance to his threat upon blockading--it was mere bumptiousness indicating his mercurial folly. In every indication he read utter repudiation by his clan. His eager but limited reading had taught him that every true leader, if he is far enough in advance of those he leads, must bear this bitter brunt of misunderstanding, but he was young and a freshly inspired fanatic, and that meant that he was in this respect, humorless--but he was not beaten. Standing somewhat apart with a satirical smite drawing his lips, Bear Cat watched them ride away, and when most of them had gone his uncle, Joe Stacy, came over and stood by his side. "Ontil ter-day, Turner," he said with a note of deep sorrow in his voice, "I 'lowed ye hed ahead of ye a right hopeful future. I 'lowed ye'd be a leader--but ye kain't lead men contrarywise ter doctrines thet they fed on at thar mothers' breasts. I've always kind of hed ther notion thet someday ye'd go down thar ter Frankfort an' set in ther legislature ... but ter-day ye've done flung away ther loyalty of men that bragged about ye an' war ready ter die, follerin' ye." "I reckon they kin find plenty of men ter lead 'em _thet_ way,--round an' round in circles thet don't git nowhars," came the defiant response. "Thet hain't ther sort of leadership I craves." "Hit hain't thet I holds no love fer blockade 'stillin'," explained the older man seriously. "I got my belly full a long time back--an' quit. Ef ye could stomp hit out, I'd say do hit--but ye kain't. Ye hain't jest seekin' ter t'ar out stills--ye're splittin' up yore own blood inter factions an' warfare. Thar hain't nothin' kin come outen hit all, save fer ye ter be diskivered some day a-layin' stretched out in a creek-bed road, with a bullet bored through yore body."